Texas judge rips rodeo while alleging racism, sexism and manhandling

A Texas judge said she was manhandled while attending a concert at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this week after staffers refused to let her access a VIP area and escorted her out of the venue.The judge questioned whether she was the victim of racism or sexism despite being given $9,000 in freebies. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said she and five guests — another elected official, the official’s children and the parents of a US Air Force sergeant who recently died — attended a Megan Moroney concert at the popular rodeo show Tuesday. However, the group was barred from the venue’s premium floor access area — the ticket area known as “the dirt” — because they had not paid the $425 per head price tag for wristbands and the show was sold out, the rodeo said in response to a Fox News Digital request for comment.Hildalgo said she had previously been allowed on the floor access area without a wristband “based on the county’s relationship with the rodeo.” She said she assumed the area was “friends of rodeo leaders or for rodeo leaders or such.”The judge said she then asked if her guests could be let into the area before she was grabbed, shoved and threatened with arrest. “I understand the rodeo committee members have a job to do,” Hidalgo wrote in a scathing letter to rodeo board Chairwoman Pat Phillips and rodeo President Chris Boleman. “They are trying to keep thousands of people safe at the largest rodeo in the world.

I did not want to prevent the committee members from doing their jobs, nor was I trying to take advantage of ‘privileges’ or call in favors.I was not even interested in seeing the concert.

I was only interested in helping community members enjoy an important event.”Rodeo officials said Hidalgo was asked several times to return to the county suite where she was seated previously.She was then asked to leave and was escorted out of the venue. “There were numerous law enforcement officers who were pres...